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Australia To Vote On New R18+ Rating Bill Next Month

Here in the US, we have the ESRB ratings for video games, which seems to work out fine.

But other areas of the globe are in dire need of an upgrade. Take Australia, for instance, a country that doesn't have a rating above 15 years of age for games. Hence, many titles that would receive the standard "M"-Mature rating here can't get a rating in the Land Down Under, which essentially means they're banned because retailers won't stock unrated products.

Obviously, this implies that games are only for kids and no, this isn't 1985, anymore. So next month, according to a GI.biz report, the Australian government is going to debate and vote upon the possibility of an R18+ rating. Previously, it was believed some cabinet reshuffling had delayed the upcoming discussion but that's not the case. The bill in question will still be decided in the country's first parliamentary session of the year, which is slated for February 7. If the bill passes the lower house, it moves on to face a final decision in the Senate.

To get a pass, the bill requires the support of at least two of five floating crossbench MPs, and it's believed there's enough support to see the bill through to the Senate. After that...one can only hope.

Comments (16 posts)

This is the easy step seeing R18 though to it's final stage of enactment, the hard part was getting the Attorney Generals to agree to a change in our ratings system at all. If any change were to happen to our ratings system they needed to agree to it, completely all states. Without that no bill could be introduced in parliament at all.

For years we lobbied the AG's individually but it took the present home affairs minister to get them all to fall in line and a *family values* AG to retire for them to finally agree.

Good luck Australia! You guys deserve the convenience of not importing all the time. I think markets that are behind the times are a bit like Chuck Norris coming in to force Expendables 2 from R to PG-13.

FINALLY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!will be a while till its in place, early 2013 have been the estimations once its passed but better late then never!still cant believe the response i got from them about syndicate and GOW3 being uncomfortable.ill never be able to understand, i mean how the ^%$# can you say GOW3n is appropriate for 15 year olds to play but syndicate, a game which is no where near as violent is not!?seriously!?its like eating a bowl of porridge and saying this is too cold, this is too hot, this is just right.even though its 1000 degrees hotter then the one that was already too hot!sigh, i give up!

I think it's something to do with context. In God of War 3, sure you can throttle heads from neck stumps, splitting arteries, tendons & stretching skin in the process, gouge eyes with your thumbs & talon gut creatures, But all this violence is being done to creatures based on Greek mythology therefore it's within context. Syndicate is a different story as you can abuse a guys corpse while he is down with bullets & what the hell ever else. Big thing though, you're doing this to humans!!1111 No way, not pixel humans!!! you mean?? It's still BS though & inconsistant when corpse abuse is the basis of the banning when a ton of other FPS equally as full-on get the green light & the bogans thumbs up. So i just don't get it, just seems really random, like they have different board members with every game review.

But i guess that example of creature violence is moot considering they banned MK regardless of it featuring four armed beast woman & ninja lizards that toy around with an opponents corpse after defeating them.

Don't worry, i aint on the boards side, i think their decisions are absolute shite & the ape logic behind some of their reasoning for bans makes me want to shove my fist down my throat until i choke laugh. But this is the ACB we're talking about here where inconsistency is the keyword & the order of the day.

It's good to see movement on the issue nonetheless, but regardless when this law passes i will do what i continue to do all the time, by my games overseas until our inflated prices start to deflate, with R18 games or without.Last edited by Kevin5 on 1/25/2012 5:28:03 AM

then why is the darkness 2, fallout, fear and such fine?there all against humans too!the BS excuse they gave me was GOW3 was not banned because it did not have post mortal damage in other words once a enemy is dead you cant inflict damage.syndicate though you can, and thats why it got banned.but then fallout, fear, the darkness, they all let you do exactly the same as what syndicate does, AND there way more gory with heaps more blood!and there fine.the darkness 2 especially, dunno if youve played the demo but you can rip enemies in half with the flick of a button!syndicate very rarely do you dismember limbs you have to deliberately want to do it and aim right in the right spots which is kinda hard you dont have time to precisely line up your shot when 1000 enemies are shooting at ya!in syndicate your not forced or even encouraged to kill enemies violently, in the darkness 2 you are!hell, the more violent the kill the more points you get!thats my quarrel with the OFLC.not that they ban games, there just doing their job.i loathe them simply because they ban one game for something, then let 10 pass that have the exact same thing!if something gets 1 game banned, it should get ALL games banned!not its ok in this, ok in that, but not ok in this.if syndicate deserves to be banned, then the darkness 2 deserves to be banned 10 fold!